


Crying Lightning

by louhearted



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Demon Louis, Demons, Glory Hole, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-01 22:25:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6538942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louhearted/pseuds/louhearted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Louis is a demon and Harry’s whole life changes in a toilet stall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story is my baby. My small, very evil child. I think I might have actually summoned a demon into my laptop whilst writing this? Because the amount of times that my laptop has crashed, or that my word document has frozen, or that my font suddenly changed?!? It's scary!! But maybe that makes the whole thing more authentic? I'm going to answer that with a yes.
> 
> As always, this story would not exist without the help of so SO many people.
> 
> First and foremost, there is my love [Maddie](http://hazaesthetic.tumblr.com/), who immediately agreed to beta for me, and who encouraged me so much! You are always so passionate about my stories and you are always so kind! If you still want to, and should real life ever let you breathe again, then just say the word, and I will spam your mailing box again.
> 
> Then there are [Olivia](http://bigbadvampire.tumblr.com/) and Vic (see this is why you can't just go around deleting your blog, vic, I can't link you now hahaha). These two, my favourite bunny enthusiasts, thank you so much for beta-ing for me on such short notice, thank you for your kind words and your support and for everything! While I'm writing this, my phone is going crazy next to me, because you two are blowing up our group chat and I love you so much!!!
> 
> Of course I cannot forget [Elis](http://larrielise.tumblr.com/) , my beautiful wife. The one who makes me want to write even the most ridiculous things. She wasn't there when this story began, but she kept it alive. Always. And in some way, this story might actually be dedicated to you. Thank you so much for your unwavering support, for the beautiful header you have designed for this story, without even knowing what was coming your way. You just trusted me enough, and knew me well enough, to know what this story needed. And I love you for that.

_Ad ligandum eos pariter eos coram me._

Harry retraces the letters with a certain kind of reverence. He has never taken Latin up in his classes, has never felt the need to learn a dead language – he is a people person, he needs to be able to use a language for conversations – but right now, with the world spinning warm and fuzzy around him, his eyes still hazy from the drinks he has knocked down a few minutes ago, and his back hunched over in the small toilet stall, he thinks that maybe Latin could be the most beautiful language he has ever heard.

The words are scratched into the run down wood, the curving of the letters sloppy and hard, and Harry shudders at the thought that it might have been fingernails that have clawed their way through the layers and layers of grim posters and dirt, just to leave this message behind.

And Harry doesn't even know what it means.

He has no idea if this is just jumbled nonsense or if those words are actually trying to tell him something, but he does know that he is pulled in by their simplicity.

Almost innocently they stand out in white against the grim and dirty wood, where markers and stickers and bodily fluids have claimed the cheap wood. Harry leans further down. The inscription is on the far end corner of the stall, and if Harry hadn't felt the urgent need to go out with certain intentions tonight – he blatantly ignores the glory hole in front of him now – he would have never seen this. He feels both elated and disturbed by that fact.

Savouring the feeling of the words on the back of his tongue, Harry straightens up. His jeans are uncomfortably tight in his hunched over position and his back groans in protest, but he doesn't get up. Not just yet.

He should probably head home.

Tonight has been an exception for him, a way of looking for relief – not just in the sexual way, mind you, but simply an escape from all the books he has to bury himself in for the next couple of weeks in the hopes of passing his final exam.And no matter how interested in music Harry is, sometimes even he has enough of scrawled compositions from the 16th century.Tonight should have been the chance for him to let go, to get dirty, to drop to his knees, for fuck's sake, just  _because_.

But now his mind is hazy and blue, words in a foreign language dancing around his skull like ghosts, their feet scuffling along the unused crevices of his brain like curtains in a storm. He feels like he is drowning in chromatic scales of Bach's greatest hits, and he feels like he is flying, like Mozart's most beloved clarinet.

His fingers hover over the scratched up wood for one more minute, and then Harry heaves himself up on his feet. His black jeans, the ones without holes, the ones that get him the nicer guys, have turned gray and dirty over his kneecaps, but Harry can't be bothered right now.Maybe he will rip a hole into them as well, Niall’s opinion be damned.

With one last glance back to the dingy back corner of the toilet stall, the longing in Harry’s eyes so at odds with the smell of urine, sweat, and toxic markers, Harry leaves and goes home. He actually does have to study, he tells himself as he strolls down the glistening streets of London.

The shadowy friend of England, the constant rain cloud that keeps every single one of its promises, gifts the streets with the distant glow of dewiness, a glow that is only amplified by the showy shine of hundreds upon hundreds of street lamps that line the streets like soldiers. Maybe it is for the better that he doesn't tumble home with a stranger; maybe it had been for the best that the glory hole had been unoccupied at the moment of his shameful thirst, so that his eyes could drift down to the message that is now turning his head around and around like a carousel Harry can't stop turning.

The words, their meaning still a mystery to him, tumble over his lips like water.

Sleep overcomes him quietly and quickly. His head is a ball of cotton, and his lips keep mumbling secrets into soft linen that smell like cheap detergent and distinctly like the 21st century.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He's a demon.” He says it like it means something that neither Harry nor Louis have quite grasped.  
> “As has previously been established. I find it quite racist, actually, that you keep–”  
> Niall shushes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the first real chapter, here we are. My thank you's still go out to the same people, Maddie, Elis, Liv and Vic. They are the heart of this story and they are the most important people on this planet!  
> I hope you like it, lovelies :)

Louis Tomlinson is bored.

His matter is strewn about the place, his mind is restless, and he feels incredibly old. He knows that he doesn't have bones per say, but he feels as if he were to have them, they would be old and brittle, and he would probably wake up that darn dog Brutus with his incessant creaking.

Luckily for him, he is nothing but Black Matter. All of his movements are silent, slow and secretive. Honestly, Brutus wouldn't even know he existed if it weren't for the chatty, and in Louis' opinion rather dull, lower demons that build their whole existence on the hopes that mindless gossip will get them somewhere.

Frankly, Louis cannot be blamed for his obvious contempt towards them. It's clear that the only things that can get you a promotion in this hell hole – pun fully intended – are lies. Not blatant half-truths and overly-excited scuttle butting. He is the living proof of that.

Louis Tomlinson, feared Greater Demon, mischievous and deadly, the reason for at least half of the humans' sleazy banning spells and many doctor appointments, because really? Why does everyone have such weak bladder functions? Louis might be a little bit of a dickhead, but even he doesn't particularly like the smell of piss. Sweat, he can deal with, but he doesn't give his summoners much of a choice anyway. Hell's fires are hot, even in the dark corners of the Void, and he spends the majority of his life down here, so sue him for raising the room's temperature now and again. But the strong and bitter smell of piss? It was funny the first three or four times, but now it's just boring.

Especially since Louis is none of the things humanity makes him out to be. That's just what he made them believe. Not a Greater Demon, not evil, not even close to being an evil mastermind, and most definitely not deadly. He just gets bored really easily. Surely that's not a bad thing?

Anyway, Louis is bored now as well, and he cannot even blame excreta.

Even though the Void doesn't have a time system like the one that exists on earth, Louis knows that it's been a while since he has last seen the lilac sky on earth, and yes, he makes fun of the thickness of the Humans, but he quite enjoys their company as well. It gets dull after a while, just being scattered about doing absolutely nothing. And trust him, he's tried annoying Brutus, or even Lucy – not even that nickname seems to do the trick any more, because even Lucifer just smiles indulgently at Louis now – but they just won't react.

And so Louis can conclude with 100% certainty that it has been a while. And he wants out.

Where are all the dumb and overzealous students? Where are the overeager magicians that think they have to prove something and start summoning him, even though there are ten skulls next to his name as well as three warnings in 15 languages, and possibly a list of everyone he's killed attached to the bottom of every book in the Ministry. ( _Accidentally_ killed, all right? Louis would not actually kill anyone. He can't cope with inanity very well, but he's not a murderer.)

And then, suddenly, as if someone had listened to his whiny inner monologue for once – Louis craves attention; he needs it like humans need air – the pull starts. That tugging deep within his core that tells him that someone is summoning him. He feels the magic that is so familiar to him by now suck at him and pull, pull, pull.

Every word is like a hot iron on his soul – yes, he still has one; sometimes it gets old trying to pretend to be irredeemably evil all the time – but he can tell that his summoner is weak, that the words haven't been practised, that he can wait this one out.

The student will be exhausted by the time Louis decides to pay him a visit. The smell of piss should be worth something, don't you think? And waiting is so simple, if in return you are gifted with a shaking, shuddering, stuttering simpleton who most likely forgot to draw the right devil's trap.

Louis smiles to himself and starts extracting his matter from the slumbering demons next to him. All their matter is tangled with each other, the Void less a playground than a forced habitation, and Louis takes up a little more space than normal demons, so it takes him a while, but he's got nothing if not time, right?

And yet, no matter how great of a demon you are, the pull towards earth isn't pleasant. Like, ever. If Louis were to question his existence, and maybe start thinking about a higher deity and whatnot, he might start to question why humanity has found a way to summon them in the first place, and why anyone would let one species be this much at a disadvantage. Just a few mumbled words and your whole matter gets pulled away, you end up somewhere on earth, far away from home, and if you did indeed have a decently intelligent human in front of you, you had to serve them for as long as they seemed fitting.

Yes, Louis has indeed just dared to say that he misses earth, but everyone can see that something's off about the power play between Humans and Demons, right? But Louis is not questioning his existence, nor the way that humans have managed to have some kind of upper hand over a species that is actually made of magic, while they are surviving on a flickering suffocating flame of choked up words, a small evolutionary rest of real of magic. He is _not_. He has better things to think about.

For example, which form he should choose for his materialization. He's thinking about going for the good old fiery red eyes and a lot of smoke. Maybe he should bring back the good old claws? Or maybe the tail. A tail he has most definitely not stolen off of Lucy, just to be clear. There are always two sides to a story and Louis' is clearly the right one. He has always had a better fashion sense than Lucy, thank you very much. If anything, Lucy stole that idea from him. Ha.

Back to the topic at hand, Louis is ready to strike. Cloaked with as much smoke as possible, Louis starts materializing. His eyes, just the right nuance of red, that shimmering mixture of blood and rubies, already taking everything in. And there's nothing. He's not kidding, there's _nothing_.

First of all, it has either become fashionable to hide from the demon you're summoning or someone has started telling porky pies again. Maybe someone thinks Louis is a fire demon now, which… just no, but nevertheless, there is no one in the room. No human, no animal, not even a bloody crow, and Louis has been around, he knows how bloody popular those evil bastards are.

There are a few books splattered across the floor, but they don't look like books from the Ministry, let alone like books that could hold any type of magic, most notably, not the higher forms of magic that you would need to summon Louis himself. The air is still polluted with the smell of something bitter and warm, but for the first time, it's not piss; it's something else. Louis loathes it.

But worst of all, there is no devil's trap, not even a banning sign, no pentagram, no nothing. The usual smell of chalk and wax that Louis has come to know when he arrives anywhere on earth is missing.

He squints his red eyes and makes his smoke disappear, untangles his matter into its first form, the one of a young man, the one who's name he had adopted and who's body he had chosen all those centuries ago, and looks around once more.

Maybe he's missed something. Like he has said, it's been a while. Maybe he has lost his touch? This line of work has a lot to do with habit and oh, sweet, sweet Brutus, what if he really _has_ lost his touch?

With new eyes – blue and human – he looks around the room.

And now Louis is just upset, because he deserves a welcome committee. He has worked hard for his alleged title of a Greater Demon and he demands to be feared.

So he starts walking around, picking stuff up and putting it down. Still trying to figure out where that disgustingly bitter smell is coming from. The room is white and looks empty in contrast to the rooms that Louis is used to. Normally, wizards are all show and tell, with big books, heavy curtains, and of course, they themselves do tend to show up.

Yes, Louis is still cross about that.

There is a small table crammed into one corner of the room, the piles of paper and cheap paperback books strewn across it like people on battle fields. They look forlorn and forgotten. The bit of symmetry Louis can see is mocked by the crumpled up notes on the ground. Almost like snow, they are piling up left and right. The graveyards of paperbacks on the table, yellowing with use and meticulously put together on the right hand side, cover the clean spots with dirty shadows.

Louis almost pities the person who must work behind that table.

The room can hold no more than three people at once, and Louis already feels claustrophobic. He is used to the vastness of Hell and the ridiculous showy halls of wizards, not this. Apart from one small window and a light bulb, there is no light source, and Louis dearly misses his welcoming candles.

He turns around. The bed that is standing beneath the window is narrow and old, and Louis feels incredibly sorry for it. It looks as if it wanted to become one with the wall, so that maybe no one would have to know that it belonged in here. With a frustrated sigh, Louis turns back to the desk.

Even though he has never been one for books (they are just full of glorified lies, one letter after the other just dripping with white lies, dark lies, and even deadly ones), he moves towards the table and picks up the first thing within reach.

_Basso Continuum – The Art of Simplicity_

The bookend sighs when he flips through the pages, as if the weight it has to carry is too much to bear. The pages are filled with mysterious drawings, lines and dots. Louis is well aware of the fact that humanity can be cruel, but he is oddly appalled by the drawings he finds in here. There are honestly hundreds of pages dedicated to small drawings of small dots being hung. Like dead souls they are hanging in between the lines and Louis shudders at the thought what they might have wanted to say.

He picks up the next book. _The History of the Opera._ Louis smiles. He knows that! The yellowing pages of the book are laced with colourful ink that has come together a long time ago to show an even older Venice.

Louis has been there. He remembers the smell, the hustle and bustle of motley men, and he remembers the gargoyles. Nasty beasts.

The book lands on the floor with a satisfying thud.

With newly peeked interest, Louis turns to the loose notes. More horrifying drawings of ink drops being hung like freaking laundry, scrawled writing in the margins. So many words, Louis scoffs. How many lies can one fit onto one small piece of paper? More and more paper lands behind him. The manic flutter of paper wings is the only sound in the room.

And then there's a gasp. Like lightning before thunder, it slices through the stiff but silent air of the room.

“What are you doing with my stuff?”, the intruder asks, his voice oddly calm. Louis turns around.

There is a young man in the doorway. His hair is a mess, his clothes are disastrous, and from a small paper cup in his left hand, the warm and bitter smell of _not-piss_ is spreading with renewed fervour.

“Who are you?”, the boy asks, and his eyes rake over Louis' body, up and down, up and down. Louis feels oddly naked.

“Did you call me?” Louis asks instead of choosing to answer the boy’s questions. He crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“Ca–” The boy shakes his head. “Call you? Why would I call you? I don't even know who you are!” Well, that is just bloody rude, Louis decides and puffs his chest out.

“I'm Louis Tomlinson.”

“And I'm incredibly busy, so if you'd be so kind?” The boy points behind him to the door, his hand moving slowly and deliberately, the liquid in the cup sloshing around. Louis ignores him once again. He won't listen to rudeness, nor will he be thrown out of a room.

“What's that?” He asks instead and points towards the cup. “This?” The poor lad seems honestly confused. “It's coffee? Mate, if you're looking for the coffee machine, you're on the wrong floor. Ours broke weeks ago. Anyway, could you please just, err… leave?”

“Coffee?” Louis asks and scrunches his nose up. He makes a mental note to avoid that brew at all cost in the future. Gingerly, the boy takes a step towards him.

“Are you okay? You seem–” His speech pattern is oddly fascinating. Instead of throwing careless words into the room as most magicians do, something that so often gets them killed, he lets each word roll over his tongue as if it were precious, heavy almost, pure gold cargo. “I don't know, you seem kinda out of it, to be honest.”

Louis is. Out of it, that is. How did he get here, if no one summoned him?

“Why don't you know who I am?” he asks, and without thinking about it, also steps closer to the boy in front of him.

His hair seems oddly big on him. Louis wonders if it's contagious.

“Because I don't?” Big Hair has green eyes.

“But why? Who summoned me, if not you?”

“Summoned?” Big Hair has _really_ green eyes, and Louis just cannot stand the fact that they seem to be looking at him as if he has lost his mind. It's unnerving, is what it is.

“Yes, summoned.” Louis crosses his arms in front of him again.

“Is there a course meeting that I missed? Summoned for what? Oh my god, I forgot about a meeting, didn't I?” The boy's green eyes fill with worry and Louis hates that even more. The green universe that is framed by frantically fluttering eyelashes drowns in shimmering tears of panic, and Louis wants to apologize for some reason.

“I don't–”, he starts, his voice slow and soft. He coughs and untangles his arms again, balling his hands into fists at his side. “I don't know what you're talking about.” Yes, that's the tone he needs to use. He is Louis Tomlinson. He is feared. He deserves respect. “Take me to your Master.”

“My what?”

Louis steps even closer to Mr. Green Eyes and pokes him in the chest. “Listen up, dimwit. This is not funny any more. Take me to your Master, or the person who summoned me here, or whatever. You will start treating me like I fucking deserve to be treated. Do you understand?”

The boy looks down at the finger that punches against his sternum and doesn't move. “How do you think you deserve to be treated?” he asks.

He takes a step back, efficiently moving away from Louis' accusing hand.

“Excuse me?” Louis splutters. His finger is like a crow's claw, still hovering in the air. This conversation is getting more and more ridiculous. What kind of question was this?

“You heard me,” the boy says and puts his cup down on the table, his eyes never leaving Louis. “You are in my room, for which you still haven't given me an explanation by the way, and you are being actually incredibly rude to me. So I am asking you how people normally answer to your rudeness.”

“Rudeness?”

“Yes. How do people normally talk to you? What triggered your – okay, I'm sorry, but someone has to say it – your God complex? You´re strolling around like you own the place, and it's kind of unnerving.” Louis' hand falls limply to his side.

“This is so confusing,” he mumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You and me both, but I actually have to study, so you can either tell me how I can help you or you can leave.” The boy's chest is rising rapidly, and Louis can tell that he has straightened his shoulders and is trying to look bigger than he is.

“I can't leave.”

The boy rolls his eyes. “Why can't you leave?”

“Because I don't know how I got here, so I don't know how to leave.”

“Through the door, maybe?” Louis can hear concern drip into his words once more and it's just as weird as the boy's cockiness. Today is not Louis' day. “Seriously, are you all right? Are you stoned?”

“They tried stoning me, but it didn't work,” Louis chuckles, enjoying his pun, but going by the boy's face, that was the wrong thing to say.

“I'm just going to call the school nurse, all right? She'll know what to do.” He starts fumbling with his back pocket and Louis watches as he pulls out a silver shimmering rectangle. He lifts it to his ear, his eyes flickering to Louis, green and wide, confusion like heavy curtains over his irises.

“Hi, it's Harry.” He nods and bites the pad of his thumb, his eyes still on Louis. “Hi, Judy, hi, how are you?” More silence. “No, I'm fine, it's… Listen, there's a guy in my room… JUDY!” He blushes and his eyes flutter closed. He looks to the side. “Not like that, Judy, seriously. I think he hit his head or something, or maybe he took something; he's very confused and he won't leave and he–” Harry nods vigorously. “Thank you.” More nodding. “Yes, I'm going to wait with him.” “Okay, so, Louis?” Harry's entire focus is on Louis again, his hands are outstretched, with his palms facing towards Louis. “Why don't you sit down?”

“I'd rather not, thank you.” He crosses his arms in front of his chest, while he listens to Harry mumble something about shock and delusions.

“Judy will be here in a minute and she'll take care of you.” Harry suddenly seems sure of himself, but his posture still shows how uncomfortable he is. Louis feels like Harry has finally found an explanation for this situation that fits his view and he is holding on to it like a man drowning. Louis is still clueless.

“Is she your Master?”

“I don't have a–” He interrupts himself. “Are you sure that you don't want to sit down? My bed is right th–” He leans forward and his hand lands on Louis' forearm, tugging him slowly to the corner of his bed.

And Louis doesn't know why he reacts like this, doesn't know why he feels like someone grabbed one end of his matter and tied it around Xanthos' and Balios' legs, running, pulling, making him jerk away from the touch and change, but he does and Harry blanches.

“What the–” Louis' eyes have turned black, the white in his eyes has disappeared in the ink stain of his true colours, and his shoulders ripple with the need to burst open, to free his wings.

“Don't touch me.”

“What are… How are you doing this? Your eyes!” Harry stumbles backwards his hand clutched tightly against his chest, as he stares up at Louis, an exciting mixture of wonder and fear radiating off his body.

“Yes, I know, it's not my best look, but apparently this got your attention, so let me repeat myself: Who summoned me?”

Harry's mouth opens and closes like a fish on dry land, and it would have been hilarious if Louis wasn't desperate to finally find out the truth. “Okay, let me rephrase. Hello, I'm Louis Tomlinson, Greater Demon of the Void, and I want to know who summoned me to this god forsaken place.”

“Demon?” Harry stutters and okay, fine, Louis snorted.

“Don't look so surprised; we are a common occurrence, are we not?”

Harry points towards the aforementioned bed. “Can I sit down maybe?”

“Dear Brutus, you are faint-hearted, aren't you? Don't let me stop you.” He follows Harry's unsure steps with his eyes, holding his breath when Harry brushes against him. The room is unfortunately small.

“So–” Harry coughs and plucks invisible lint off his comforter. “Demon?”

Louis nods. “We're getting somewhere, finally!”

“Niall put you up to this, didn't he? I should have guessed so when I saw your clothes.” He points to Louis' suspenders and billowy white linen shirt. “Really funny. Because the history jokes never get old.”

“I don't know a Niall, and history is never funny.”

“You don't know Niall. Okay, that's just great. That's great.”

“Stop pinching yourself and answer my questions,” Louis demands, biting his inner cheek and trying to concentrate on the spark of pain to change back.

“I don't know who summoned–” Harry stutters over the word. “I don't know how you came to be here.” His hand dances around in an all-encompassing gesture. “I don't even know if this is real or not,” Harry mumbles in an afterthought and drops his hands on his thighs, rubbing up and down the denim of his jeans.

“Well, seeing as I am just as clueless, you are going to help me find out who called on me and you are going to help me get back.” Louis tries his best to sound as authoritative as possible. He is used to being cheeky and a menace and a pain in the ass to his Masters, but he never had to play the role of someone in charge before. In real charge. Not to say that Louis wasn't always superior to his Wizards, but this calls for the strategically placed authority and planning and general responsibility that Louis isn't prone to.

“That doesn't even–” The boy looks up with wide, green eyes. “That doesn't even make sense. I have nothing to do with this. I'm not going to help you.”

Before Louis could reply, there’s a soft knock on the door frame and a cheerful voice announcing its presence.

“Hi, Harry.” Louis rolls his eyes and doesn't turn around to face the girl in the door. “How can I help?” She sounds nice, Louis will give her that, but she needs to leave.

Louis raises his eyebrows at Harry whose eyes are flickering between him and, as Louis presumes, the girl who must be Judy.

“Judy, hi. Funny story actually, uhm...” His eyes are glued to Louis' hands, where claws are starting to form. “False alarm. The guy I mentioned on the phone, he left. He seemed fine.” His voice turns squeaky and the blood redistributes from his brain to his cheeks, turning them a beautifully painful red. Without looking, Louis knows that Judy is frowning. Her confusion and blatant disapproval clots the air.

“Who's this then?” she asks warily, and Louis will give her ten points for a good intuition.

“This is, uhm, that's–” He's failing, Louis realizes with a sigh, and turns his head slightly, his profile now turned towards Judy.

“I'm a childhood friend. Just popping in to say hello.” Judy’s emotions change immediately and Louis feels like he is going to choke on the sudden excitement pouring out of her pores.

“Oh, that's so nice! Harry never mentioned–” Harry must have realized that Louis is still on edge and that idle chatter isn't in his books right now as he gracefully interrupts Judy.

“You know, Judy, he's still a bit tired from the journey here, so I think it'd be best...” Louis watches in fascination as Harry actually flutters his eyelashes and pouts like an overgrown child in Judy’s general direction.

Louis decides that this boy is either too innocent for his own good or maybe too cunning for even the best out there. Judy, no matter which of Louis' predictions would prove to be true in the end, listens to Harry’s unspoken plea immediately, wishing them a nice day and dancing out of the room as if nothing has been amiss.

“So, back to how you're going to help me,” Louis pipes up after the silence between him and Harry has gone on for too long. It had been okay when they had still been able to hear Judy’s footsteps dancing down the corridor, but after a while Louis' neck had started to prickle. Staying quiet had always been a bit of a problem for him.

\------

Apparently, this aforementioned Niall is the solution to all of Harry’s problems, because he is called down to Harry’s room before Louis can so much as utter another word.

Now there are three. Louis is still standing in the middle of the room, his audience now consisting of Harry and a confused blonde guy, who keeps nudging up his oversized glasses and is studying Louis like he’s a rare type of animal, equal parts awed and scared.

“So, let me get this straight,” he starts and slowly turns his head to Harry. “You somehow summoned a real demon. Like, they actually exist and you somehow summoned him–”

Niall raises a finger in Harry’s face as he begins to protest. “Sorry, someone somehow summoned this real life demon who ended up in your room and you want me to help you bring him back to… to…” Niall falters and looks to Louis.

“My dimension, yes.”

“Which is literal Hell. Like, that exists as well.”

Louis nods and ignores how pale Harry has gotten. He doesn't have time to worry about that boy.

“And you,” Niall points to Harry again, poking his friend in the shoulder. “You, realizing of course that I am your smartest friend, want me to send him back using only my wit and my undeniable talent to go with your every whim.”

Harry nods slowly and bites his lips. He has been doing that for the past half an hour and Louis sends off a concerned thought to Harry’s lips that must be bitten raw at this point.

Niall crosses his arms. “No bloody way, mate. Not gonna do it.”

“What? Niall, you can't just leave me here with him. He's a–” Harry’s gaze flickers to Louis and his voice drops so he's whispering now, as if the room wasn't small enough for Louis to hear the mice cough under Harry’s bed.

“He's a demon, Niall. He could kill me.” He nods gravely and Louis is not endeared. He is a demon, as Harry has been so spot on pointing out, and he does not get endeared. “He could kill _us_.”

“I know that he's a demon, Haz, that's why I am not doing it.”

In Louis' humble opinion Niall looks a bit too smug for someone who might have just as well signed his friend's death certificate. Not that Louis was going to go to such drastic measures immediately, but he knows what humans think of demons and how their stories always end, and Niall looks a bit too confident.

Harry splutters in outrage. Louis is not above threatening the blonde boy, when he speaks up again. “He's a demon.” He says it like it means something that neither Harry nor Louis have quite grasped.

“As has previously been established. I find it quite racist, actually, that you keep–”

Niall shushes him. Louis just got shushed. Louis. Getting shushed by a spiky haired, blonde dye-inhaling student.

“Harry, do you know what this means? The possibilities this opens up? We are writing history as we speak. There is a demon in your dorm!”

“And what are you going to do? Study him?!” Harry asks, outraged, and Louis kind of agrees with the sentiment.

“Not bloody likely, mate,” Louis bites, flashing his black eyes. Turning his attention to Harry, Louis raises his eyebrows in an _I told you so_ matter and says, “Told you history sucks.”

“You know what… Louis, was it? Even if I were to help you, theoretically speaking, I have no idea where to even start looking for… whatever it is I should be looking for to help you, so we can all agree that we'll be spending a lot of time together, right? What's a bit of harmless twenty questions?”

“Thank you, Niall, for your unbelievably thoughtful insight on this matter. You're just forgetting one thing. Never play with a demon.”

“Got it. I will try my best to send you back, but until then–”

“No, you will not,” Louis uses air quotes, “try your best. You will bring me back. No ifs, or buts, or anything. No games.”

“Fine.”

“So, where do we start?” Harry asks and nibbles on his fingernails. Louis cringes at the loud crunch that follows immediately after, but he can't blame the guy.

“Bring me to the Ministry, of course,” Louis says, because it's obvious, isn't it? If no one summoned him then he just needs another magician to reverse the summoning spell and poof! He can go back to his world. He knows for a fact that at the Ministry of Monsters and Dueling (The MMD, although in the late 12th century it was more known as the MDD, the Ministry of Demons and Dueling, but some whiny brat had changed it, and – Louis needed to focus!) is full of stuck up pricks and wannabes, and was generally always crawling with the dirtiest and lowest of human scum, but he could admit that they had also always had the most accurate knowledge. So, going to the Ministry was the only logical step.

“The what?” Harry asks, and Niall starts fidgeting with his glasses again.

“The Ministry? Please tell me you know where the Ministry of Monsters and Dueling is. Oh, dear Brutus, you don't know. Great. That's just great. Am I right to assume that you also don't know another wizard who might know?” So this was what it felt like to lose hope, Louis realizes, pinching the bridge of his nose. He can handle this.

“Hate to break it to you, demon–” Louis hisses. This is no time for jokes, and the sooner Niall understands, this the sooner Louis can go home. Blondie ignores him though. “–but magic isn't actually a thing any more? We don't do that. No one does.”

Louis snaps. “Well apparently someone does, idiot, or else I wouldn't be here!” Niall nods slowly and furrows his brows as if that thought seriously hadn't occurred to him yet.

“You have a point there, demon.”

Agitated, Louis turns to Harry. “Tell him to stop calling me demon.” He points accusingly at Niall, who splutters and says something that sounds suspiciously like, _but you are one_. Harry startles up and nudges Niall, shaking his head slowly when he has his friend's attention.

“Thank you,” Louis mumbles and turns away. He can hear Niall complaining to Harry that he wants to call Louis a demon as many times as possible so that it might start to feel real, but he doesn't want to concentrate on that now.

Taking a deep breath, he tries to think of another plan. He can do this. He is old and wise and smart and, like Niall has so accurately pointed out a million times, he is a demon and he can manage a pair of humans. He can do this.

They end up in the school library. It's not much, and Louis scoffs at the small and so humanly finite amount of books, but at least it's something. He can make himself believe that in this infinite mess of half-truths, they might find the one that can help him. He can also begrudgingly admit that it was Niall’s idea, but he won't say thank you. Nope. Not until they have found something.

Which they haven’t.

After five excruciating hours in a stuffy study room, accompanied by the buzzing of the electrical lamps and Niall’s tired huffs. too loud in Louis' ears, they make their way back to Harry's dorm.

Louis kind of hates the defeated slump in Harry's shoulders, but he doesn't care. He doesn't.

They part ways with Niall in the middle of the school park and scuffle home in silence.

“I’m sorry,” Harry mumbles, kicking a pebble across the lawn.

“For what?” Louis is honestly intrigued. Harry hasn't done anything.

“For not being able to help you. I'm sure you want to go back to–” He falters, in his speech and his steps. “Your family, I guess?” He shrugs and there is a sad tilt to his mouth.

“It's okay,” Louis finds himself saying. He pushes his hands into the depths of his back pockets, his shoulders rising up, a poor imitation of his wings. “I don't have any… family in my dimension. There is no one waiting for me down there.” He nods his head to the ground. Harry looks up to him with wide eyes.

“But you want to go back, and I couldn't help.”

Silence falls around them and Louis almost laughs. What are they doing? What is he doing?

“Do you sl–” Harry shakes his head, as if the question he wanted to ask was too absurd to even be in his head. “You can have my bed for the night, if you want. I can sleep on the chair. Wouldn't be the first time.” His smile is kind and genuine, his shoulder brushing against Louis'.

“I don't really sleep,” he whispers in response, and now Harry is laughing, his head thrown back like a little kid's.

“I guess I should have known.” His words are slurred by the hiccupping sound of his laughter, and Louis can't help himself but chuckle alongside him.

They laugh all the way back, laugh until the only thing to laugh about is the sound of each other's giggles, and Louis feels very – he doesn't know the word yet. It's a big word. A sad word. He smiles brightly at Harry and slouches down on the chair to give the boy room to get ready for bed.

\--------

It happens in the middle of the night – and Louis should have known, because the night has always been his friend.

Harry has been peacefully snoring away all his worries for a solid two hours now and Louis is just about to carve something into Harry's table out of boredom when he hears it. Harry is talking in his sleep. He’s mumbling. He’s reciting.

_Ad ligandum eos pariter eos coram me._ Again and again and again.

His lips are moving slowly, as if his mouth is filled with lead, but the words just kept on tumbling out, as if his brain is trying to get rid of them altogether. _Ad ligandum_ – his hand fists into his comforter and his brow crinkles – _eos pariter eos_ – he sighs softly and Louis leans closer towards him – _coram me_.

He can feel the words, the soft whisper of Harry's lips, the warm air of his lungs brushing against his cheek. That spell… that was impossible. That spell harnessed too much power for a normal wizard, way too much power for the small boy lying in front of him.

This spell had only ever been in the hands of warlords, the darkest abomination of a warlock, the ones that used demons for slaughter and slaughter alone.

Demons were brutal in their nature. Louis wouldn't deny that, his hands were bloody enough to prove that, but demons were also an intelligent race that was conscripted as spies, as allies, as a threat of course, but they were always handled like sentient beings. They – we, Louis corrected in his head, we have our own minds, we have ambitions and we can pick sides. We must serve under our master, our summoner, but we do not have to kill if we do not choose to do so.

Warlords though, warlords made demons into slaves. This spell… it makes you a puppet. Louis' skin itches over his wings, his skin rippling along his spine like waves, wanting to burst open.

He remembers the feeling of having his mind forced to obey, the feeling of becoming a puppet, a plaything, a mindless beast. He remembers it vividly. There had been one young boy – Zayn, Louis thinks his name was – who had been a warlord’s nephew. He had been kind, had been smart, had been compassionate, had been powerful. He had set Louis free, losing everything in the following war, the war that tore apart his family and his town. It had changed the laws for generations to come, exposing warlords as the criminals they were. He remembers Zayn and he remembers his uncle.

Both had been warlocks more powerful than twenty-five wizards combined, and now there’s Harry.

This is impossible. Harry is weak. Only a human. There can't be magic like that in his veins. And yet here he is, Louis, the living and breathing proof that there must be a spark in there somewhere. A bomb, more like it, because if Harry knows that spell… That's why he's playing dumb!

The puzzle pieces fall into place now. Louis is trampling down on everything that he suddenly sees a part of a bigger picture, he's stomping them all into place, and it makes sense.

Harry is playing dumb to appease the puppet, playing dumb to make the puppet weak, to make the demon trust him. Louis knows warlords. They were brutal and violent, but their cruelty was in their slyness. Harry had been planning this all along.

Louis’ skin bursts and his wings spring free, his claws ripping through his skin with so much force that his host body starts to bleed, dark red drops beading to the ground. Bloody and growling, Louis jumps on the bed, crawling over Harry's body until their noses are almost touching, with Harry's body trapped beneath his own.

“Wake up, traitor,” Louis whispers against Harry's temple, forcing his words into Harry's skull like a bullet. Snuffling, Harry opens his eyes, turning his head into the pillow to rub the last pieces off sleep from his eyes. Louis snarls, and a small string of saliva hangs from his elongated teeth. His warm breath on Harry's cheeks is what startles the boy into alertness. His body goes rigid beneath Louis' and his heart rate picks up. Oh, Louis loves the smell of fear in warlords.

“Louis?” Harry breathes. His eyes are wide and glassy, confusion shining in his sleep-weary pupils.

“I know what you did,” Louis growls, grabbing Harry's hands that are nervously twitching on the bed spread.

“What I did?” The questions sounds genuine, but Louis won't be fooled. Not any more.

“I know you summoned me. I know you're using me, but I won't let you. I learned from my mistakes; you can't keep me here.”

Green eyes stare up at him, flickering from his dark eyes to his canines to the shadow of his wings, following the traces of blood Louis has left behind.

“I didn't summon you, Louis.” His voice cracks on his name. Louis tightens his grip on Harry's wrists and leans further down.

“I heard you say the spell. I heard you.”

“What spell?” Louis' throat burns at the thought of repeating those words. He is not even sure he can.

“You're a warlord. Say it.”

“Louis, no, you know who I am. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm trying to help you!” The fight leaves Harry's muscles and he becomes pliant beneath Louis.

“No, you're a trickster. You played me. You can't know that spell unless–” Louis' grip on Harry's hands must have weakened, because suddenly it's Harry who's holding him. His hands are soft and calming against his callused claws.

“Louis, I am here to help you. I swear to you that you are safe here. I would never do anything to hurt you. I don't–” Harry's words corner Louis like lions. His brain is a mess, every thought running to the edges of his skull and scattering. He growls. Harry takes a shuddering breath and squeezes Louis' hands. “I don't know which spell you're talking about. I don't know any magic. You're safe here. No one is trying to hurt you–” Harry's words lose their meaning after a while, but he can still feel them fogging up his brain.

He takes a shuddering breath and closes his eyes, concentrating on Harry's thumb on his pulse point, rubbing back and forth in a simple rhythm.

“But you said it, you know the spell, you–”

“We can figure this out, Louis. You're safe here.” And Louis believes him.

Maybe it's the unwavering support he hears in Harry's careful whispers, maybe it's because he can feel his heart stutter against his ribcage, maybe it's because he can feel how scared Harry is, and yet here he is, whispering promises into his ear.

Slowly, he changes back. Blood dries on his fingertips, his short human nails metallic and dirty now. His shirt is ruined, the fabric torn apart and dyed in red, but his breathing returns to normal.

He collapses, Harry's body soft and warm beneath him, but he rolls away from him, suddenly needing space. On the floor, he pulls his knees up to his chest, hides his face.

He can feel Harry get up behind him, the soft patter of bare feet suddenly next to him. He doesn't want to look up, but he can feel Harry move around.

“Here, take this,” the boy suddenly whispers right next to him, and Louis looks up to see him hand him a soft, wet cloth. Harry nods in the direction of Louis' hands, an invitation to use the cloth to clean himself off his own blood. Louis nods in gratitude.

“Thanks,” he whispers. Harry stays quiet but sits down next to him, their bodies not quite touching.

Louis can feel the heat of Harry, the pure aura of life. He can feel it like a hand on his skin.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Louis turns sharply to his right, the cloth momentarily forgotten in his dirty hands.

“What?”, he asks, and keeps his eyes fixed on Harry, who is staring down at his fingers, as if they hold the secrets of the world. “You know, about that?” His eyes flicker to the bed behind him, but his focus is quickly pulled back to his hands. The air is thick between them, fizzling with unsaid words and inexplicable fear. On both sides.

“Nothing to talk about. I thought I – I was wrong about something, but now I know better.” He starts to rub the cloth against his fingernails again, more fiercely this time. It's painful almost, useless most of all, because the tears in his skin are ripping open more and more with each furious wipe, the cloth getting redder and redder by the second, but he doesn't care. The pain helps him think, forget, focus – something.

He can breathe again.

“You mentioned a spell?” Harry is brave, brave beyond what his heart understands. Louis can almost hear it tremble in an uneven rhythm against Harry's ribcage.

“You were mumbling it in your sleep. Someone must have put it in your head, by mind control or a spell, I don't know yet.”

“Mind control?” The human's voice sounds more fragile now, the night unforgiving in its darkness, sound turning into hands that draw stories into sand, obvious and telling and loud in their simplicity.

“It's really not that complicated when you're–”

“A warlord?” Louis nods gravely, his silence beautiful and deadly in contrast to Harry's whispering. “And you thought I was one?”

He cannot bring himself to answer. How could he have been so wrong? Harry couldn't be that, so cold and violent and ugly, inside out.

“You were scared, weren't you?” The words aren't spoken, but Louis can hear them loud and clear. Mind control was one thing, warlords had made it their speciality, but Mumbling – hearing people's thoughts when they were loud enough, when they were almost given willingly, when they were standing in the room like shadows, there but not there after all – that was child's play. Louis hates it.

“That spell… should we write it down? Maybe Niall knows where to look for it?” Louis wants to scoff at the idea of Niall knowing where to find a source that would lead them from a spell to a summoner, a warlord much less, but he nods nonetheless.

Glad that he doesn't need to say the spell, he accepts a pen from Harry and writes it down. His handwriting is loopy and old, his hand not used to the feeling of a pen in it anymore. When he is done, putting the pen away and dangling his final piece in front of Harry, the edges of the paper are tinted in red.

Harry inhales sharply, air wheezing past his teeth in a cold whistle, and time stands still.

Louis looks up, his eyes wide and alarmed. What if he triggered something, what if someone has made Harry their puppet, what if – when he sees clear and honest recognition in Harry's eyes, he freezes and the paper crunches in his fist. He has been deceived, Harry knows the spell after all, everything has been a trick—

“I know that spell,” Harry whispers, and his eyes are wide and green. His pupils dance across his irises like magnets being played with, hectic and wild. He looks almost mad with it.

Louis wants to run, he cannot fight a warlord, he cannot, but he is frozen to the spot.

“I know where I read that, where to find it. I know where we can start figuring out how to help you get back."

And now there is hope in the mix, Harry's eyes almost changing colour, the happiness so radiant in his face. And there is nothing Louis can do but smile hopefully in return.

He needs to trust him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have literally put so many last minute changes into this... my betas must secretly hate me hahhaa
> 
> You can contact me on [tumblr](http://louhearted.tumblr.com/), if you have any questions or if you just want to chat :)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading <3 <3


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I am a Greater Demon, yes.” He watches as Niall makes a grab for the folder, easily taking it out of Harry's long and limp fingers, his eyes going wide as he finds the paragraph about Louis. “I didn't see that.” He murmurs and his fingers trace over the ink, as if it was written in Braille not sandy ink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for still being here <3 Thank you so much to everyone who has supported, encouraged and helped me along the way. We still have a long journey ahead of us. Thank you for choosing to come with me :)

“I'm not sure I understand what we're doing here.” Louis says and warily eyes the building they have come to stop in front of.

They had left right away, Harry's blood rushing loudly with adrenalin, as he had pulled Louis out of his room and across the city. The night is heavy around them, the darkness so prominent that it is like a weight of its own on their shoulders.

“This is it, Louis.” Harry says and he shakes Louis' arm as if it's supposed to mean something to him.

“This is a dump, Harry. Nothing more and nothing less.”

A few people are still mingling in front of the black double doors, blue smoke curling around their lips and dancing into the cloudless sky. The floor is vibrating beneath their feet, the pounding bass inside the club loud enough to shake even the miserable adjoining heaps of grout and brick.

“No this is where I saw the spell.” He sounds excited almost and Louis cannot understand how any of this fits together.

His gaze flickers back to the group of people on their left, their cigarettes still gleaming like broken stars in the street, and he notices their clothes, black and grungy, styled but frayed, and he wishes he knew more about what time Harry summoned him into. Because this century is freaking him out.

“You saw one of the most powerful spells in existence in there?” He asks just to be certain and points to the heavy doors, just as they are being pushed open. Two men stumble out, their limbs entwined, their hands clasped, their laughter being drowned out by the pulses of techno music filtering through the air. They disappear into a taxi and the street falls silent again, as the two ride away, and the doors fall shut. They looked like fugitives, Louis thinks calmly, running from life.

“Trust me Louis, this is it!” He starts tugging at his sleeve, and Louis lets himself be pulled along. More confident than Louis has ever seen him, Harry strolls towards the entrance of the club and pushes down the heavy metal handle. The tugging on Louis' sleeve – he's wearing one of Harry's shirts now, his ruined by his own outburst – gets more aggressive and suddenly he is in front of Harry, his back plastered to the boy's front and they are enveloped by sweat, fake fog, and the rhythmic pounding of music.

“Liam!” Harry yells suddenly and waves one hand above the crowd. “Liam!”

A big guy stalks towards them, his hair is short, almost non existent, Louis realizes, and asks himself if humanity still has a flea problem, but the man's smile is so bright, that fleas must be the least of his problems.

“Harry! Back so soon? Don't you have to study?” A meaty hand comes down on Harry's shoulder, a friendly clap, both men smiling, but Louis can only scoff.

“Thank you for reminding me, dad.” Harry's voice is soft from laughter and Louis hates what that does to his insides. He barely trusts him, was at his throat no less than two hours ago, and yet his heart jumps every time Harry comes close to him, every time he laughs, every time he does something so incredibly … human.

“And who is this?” Liam asks and Louis decides that he doesn't like him. “That's Louis. He needs my help in -”

“In matters that do not concern you.” Louis interrupts and crosses his arms in front of his chest, but Liam doesn't seem fazed. His smile stays in tact, as bright and inviting as it had been for Harry.

“Yeah, you're right, I shouldn't always put my nose in other people's business. That's what the bartenders are for, not the bouncer, am I right?” He laughs a deep belly laugh and shakes his head in a breathless and happy haze.

“Right.” Louis says suspiciously and turns his body, angling his head to look at Harry's profile. “So what now?”, he asks and Harry smiles down on him.

A genuine smile that makes Louis twist out of Harry's soft grasp. It was getting too warm in Harry's arms, that's all. “Now we ask Liam here for a favour.”

The man in question rolls his eyes and quirks one eyebrow. A challenge Louis realizes, _bring it on_.

Harry leans forward, not squishing Louis in between himself and Liam this time and asks Liam if him and Louis could run to the loo for a second, without the hassle of paying for entry. The bouncer laughs again, crinkly eyed and with a full body shake and leans closer into Harry's side, angling his mouth away from Louis, which makes eavesdropping a lot harder for Louis, whose senses are still pounded by the club's music. He does catch a few words though and he tells himself to remember to ask Harry what they mean.

Especially since he thinks Harry is starting to blush a little bit at Liam's words. But for now, Liam pushes them through the crowd, past a ticket booth and a long queue and when they reach the middle of a dance floor – Louis is not sure if it can be described as such, but he is pretty sure that they are standing in the middle of a makeshift dance floor, if the heady press of bodies all around him is anything to go by – Liam points them towards the back and chuckles, winking at Harry.

“Have fun.” He laughs and makes his way back to where Harry had run into him, at the entrance of the club.

“It's not what you think, Liam!” Harry yells but Liam only waves him off, Harry's words probably lost in the deafening sounds around them. Suddenly Louis' hand is engulfed in Harry's and before he can protest Harry is tugging him through the crowd and towards a narrow corridor. The hazy violet lights from the club barely make it into the darkness of the hallway, only a few lost beams bounce from one crooked mirror to the next. Like drunk punches they fly from left to right and Louis feels a headache coming on.

“This way,” Harry mumbles and Louis could swear that he is avoiding eye contact, but before he can ponder on it Harry swings open a dirty door and pushes Louis inside.

The room he finds himself in, is small and long, there are several sinks on his left and six wooden cabins on his right. The wood is old and dark with dirt and grim, marked by time and pencils and all kinds of fluids, Louis realizes as he sees the different shades of brown in the wood and how spoiled the wood is, the doors creaking in their hinges.

“Hygienic.” Louis mutters and walks towards one of the stalls, pushing the door open with his fingertips.

Behind the door, there is a forlorn looking toilet. Not its cause for existence making the sight of it depressing, but the fact, that it's actually pretty clean on its own. Stark white and polished black, standing in between two grim walls of dark wood, colourful posters and scrawny quotes and dirt making them heavier than the architect anticipated, their usual vertical structure, hollowed and bent towards the middle. What really catches Louis' eye though is the hole on his right. In the middle of the wall, there is a perfectly round hole at the height of his waist, just… sitting there. No matter how grungy these toilets are, he doesn't think that someone would have built these in with tree holes still in tact, especially not in rooms like these. Louis knows of humanity's embarrassment of their own body and its functions.

“What's that?” He asks and turns around, expecting to see Harry behind him, but the room is empty. Only the occasional dripping of a broken tap can be heard in the room.

“Harry?” Louis asks warily and gets ready to transform to sharpen his senses, to ward off an attack, but then he hears him.

“In here.” Harry's voices drifts over to him from two stalls over and Louis cautiously moves towards the sound.

He finds Harry kneeling on the ground of the last stall in the room, his back as round as a medieval bridge, the knobs of his spine pronounced and his shoulder tense, as he concentrates on one single spot in the far end corner of the booth.

“Harry?” Louis asks warily, because he doesn't know what else to say, how to ask for what he really wants to know.

“I found it,” is Harry's reply and Louis is fast to drop to his knees next to him. They are touching now, their sides pressed against each other, but instead of the warmth Louis is used to now from Harry, he only feels cold dread seeping through his bones.

And there it is. Scratched into dirty wood, the most powerful sentence in the world. The oldest spell in the history of binding spells, impossible for Harry alone to use, impossible for him to make it work. But Louis tries to swallow down all doubt in regards to Harry, tries to use whatever Harry is sharing here with him, whatever he is letting him in on, to his advantage. It is not curiosity, but a pull stronger than that, that makes Louis lean forward, his fingers looking to touch the uneven words. But before he can get too close, his skin starts tingling, and suddenly he gets burned, flinching back from the pain. His skin is fizzling and dark on the pads of his fingers and he curses every damn creature in the Void, plopping his fingers into his mouth to cool the burns.

Harry coughs loudly, pointedly, and when Louis looks at him, a blush is adorning his face, the red colour obvious on his otherwise pale face, the artificial lighting making him look like a ghost who had been bathed in cherry wine.

“Are you okay?” The boy asks, but avoids eye contact. He is propping himself up on the toilet seat now, and Louis' gaze drops to Harry's white knuckled grip on the flush.

“Yeah, it just… burned me.”

“But that means it's the right one, right?” And Harry shouldn't sound so hopeful, so naive, shouldn't amplify the small voice in Louis' head that he can be trusted.

“Yeah that.” Louis stands up, and Harry's eyes follow his movements, up, up, up until Harry has to lean back his head, his curls hidden in his neck now. “It also means we are caught up in more shit, than we thought.”

The human scrambles up, his tense hands flapping around his body suddenly, as if he was close to losing his balance. “What does that mean?”

Louis ignores him for his own questions: “And you said you were the only one who could have seen that spell that night? You didn't share this with any one? You didn't tell anyone?” His hand is gesticulating wildly between Harry's and his own chest, searching for answers in the dingy air between them.

“No, I told you, I didn't tell anyone. I went here two nights ago and I came here -” He stutters suddenly. “I just read it and was somehow really attracted to it? It was like… seeing the one you thing you never knew you wanted, smelling the most beautiful flowers, or like… the ocean breeze? It was like a fever dream. But I went home and the next day? You were there. I didn't tell anyone.”

A warm and heavy hand settles on Louis' forearm. Human reassurance in the form of touch. Louis understands and controls his impulse to change his skin, to slither out of Harry's grip. He nods instead, his teeth grinding against one another. They had not gotten any closer to solving anything. If Harry has been the only one to summon him, then there was still the question of how someone with so little magic could yield such a powerful weapon. There was still the question who put such a powerful spell on display like that.

“We should go back.” Louis says, the coldness in his tone a defence mechanism to keep his thoughts at bay.

“Maybe Niall does know something?”

Louis scoffs but in the end he relents.

“It's worth a shot.”

\-------------

They don't have to wait long for Niall. The sun has just begun peaking over the end of the world, the day not yet fully awake when he comes barrelling into Harry's room. He is brandishing a huge folder in his left hand, his glasses pushed on top of his head, turning his hair into spikes.

“I think I found something!” Niall yells triumphantly before Harry can even lower his phone where he had been typing out a text for Niall to come over as soon as convenient.

“Found something for what?” Harry asks dumbfounded, his thumbs still hovering over the small number pad.

“For him!” The blonde exclaims and points to Louis who has made himself comfortable on Harry's bed, sitting cross-legged on the comforter and raising an eyebrow at Niall. Otherwise not moving a muscle.

“Since last night was a bust, I did some more digging, and I think I might have found something.” Niall's eyes are glassy from lack of sleep and his hands are trembling, exhaustion or the oodles of caffeine currently keeping him standing upright forcing his nerve endings to stay alert. In his mindless state he doesn't take note of the glances exchanged between Harry and Louis. Louis in particular looking ready to explode, because if the blonde guy didn't get a grip on himself, he would be useless for what Harry and him had actually needed him for.

“So, guys, I know we agreed on not using you,” he points to Louis as if he was the newest roller coaster in an amusement park, “as our guinea pig for studies on demonology or the impact of magic on history, but I couldn't help myself, but dig deeper. But I didn't touch you or use you as a lab rat, so I think we all came out as winners out of this one. Anyway, I was thinking.”

“Brutus help us.” Louis whispers, but Niall ignores him, or maybe he didn't even hear him, too lost in his own voice and theories.

“I was thinking that I just needed to find the right mythology about you. I mean Demons and Magic and Witches and all that, those are common topics in history, it is a common fear of the unknown turned into something dark and palpable. But maybe it has always had a shape and a life and people just covered it up with actual mythology as to hide the real stuff. Get it?”

Harry nods slowly, Louis rolls his eyes. No new information there. Humans are liars and they are ruthless and gullible. The perfect trilogy to forget that an entire race, demons, had helped built the world they live in now, going hand in hand with powerful humans (power always fell on the daftest beings, that was a rule that applied in the Void and on Earth).

“So I tried to start off with the weirdest stories I could come up, research by way of elimination of the impossible, because I am smart and Sherlock freaking Holmes would be proud of me.”

Now Louis really has to snort out a laugh. Sherlock Holmes, he remembers that one. It had been a young wizard, as eager as they all are at young age, but he had been the only one brave enough to do something about his dreams. He had summoned Louis, wanting to impress his teachers by showing them that he had been able to summon and contain a powerful demon. (If Louis remembers correctly his reputation in the 19th century was the one of a shadow demon? Awful crowd those demons, which was why their reputation proceeded them and why Louis got a lot of awesome jobs and summonings in that time. Until he screwed it up and people realized that he was in fact not a shadow walker). That had nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes though. He had been a cool guy. When his teachers didn't believe him about his summoning of Louis, they bonded over the stupidity of humanity and Louis helped Sherlock Holmes built a reputation for himself. He taught him the art of lying and deception. He had been the puppet master and Sherlock Holmes had been his plaything. And his friend. Those lines always blurred together. Niall's ramble continues nevertheless.

“Anyway, I started with the usual, you know. Supernatural, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Buffy -”

“Niall, I don't think that-” Harry interrupts and a smile is playing around his lips. Louis isn't charmed.

“No, let me finish, Hazza. I went from popular contemporary folklore to historical and famous spins on mythology, and then I went back to all sorts of religious beliefs that focus on demonic appearances. I mean Louis, you did mention Hell, right? Heaven and Hell, maybe some nuns or priests knew more than they let on?”

“There is no such thing as heaven, Blondie.” Louis says and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“You wouldn't know would you? You are a creature of Hell. I doubt that they just open the gates to Heaven to anyone.” Niall pouts and crosses his arms, the folder in his hand getting crushed carelessly against is chest.

“There is no Heaven.” Louis repeats quietly and mirrors Niall's stance.

“Debatable. But you're right, I didn't find anything on that end of my research as well, but then I stumbled upon this, and I think I might have hit a jackpot, right there.” He shakes out the folder and now Louis sees it. It has the Mark of the Ministry on it. The ink is faded and grey instead of blue, but this has once been an official folder. And there might be clues in there after all.

“Where did you find that?” Louis asks, interrupting Niall, who had been gesticulating passionately in front of Harry.

“In the library. I have connections. There is a closed off area. Closed off, because the construction is too fragile, can you believe that? I didn't even know that our university was that old, I mean the founding date does say 1967, right? But apparently the foundation stone was actually set in- What are you doing?” Niall protests loudly, as Louis snatches the files right out of his hand.

His stuttered protest is drowned out in Louis' ears as he opens the folder, sitting back down on the bed, and skims through page after page of grey ink on yellowing paper. Like old wax on sulphur. But nothing. There is nothing that could help him. The chances had been slim to begin with, one random file, found by none other than Niall, the overzealous History student? Of course nothing helpful would be in there. He tosses the folder onto the floor and growls. Louder than he intended to do.

“What the heck, man?” Niall asks, and Louis can see the hairs on his arms stand up, his body getting ready to run.

“That file doesn't help us.” His voice is gruff and dark. Louis' whole behaviour still more demonic than human, his fingers clawed into the comforter and his shoulders tense.

“Is he always that moody?” Niall whispers into Harry's ear and Louis rolls his eyes.

Niall shrugs. “Okay, so the file doesn't say anything about bringing you back, but it's the best thing we've got for now. And there are pretty interesting things in there, which are also, judging by your reaction, real actual facts, so I just want to say that I am the best history researcher on campus and everyone should bow before me.” His blue eyes shine brightly. But Louis ignores him, and searches for Harry's gaze.

He had been too quiet throughout all of this. And there he is, leaning against his small desk, his back hunched, the Ministry's file delicately placed in his hands and he is reading through the pages with wide eyes. His eyelashes are fluttering, too many words imprinting on his retina, too much information to absorb.

“What are you doing?” Louis asks, and suddenly his voice is soft again, human. Harry has that effect. Louis doesn't want to think about it.

“There is an entry on you, I think.”

Louis knows that. He saw the small margin with his name underlined thrice. He ignored it, had hoped Harry wouldn't see. “There is?” He says, his voice mocking a question.

“It says you are one of the most dangerous demons in the realm.” Harry looks up and his eyelashes stop fluttering, they are like spears around his mossy green eyes, nailing Louis to the bed, paralysing him. He doesn't owe Harry anything, doesn't owe him an explanation, doesn't owe him an apology. And yet he gulps and looks away. It's a tricky lie. He is dangerous, yes. But not in the way most wizards assumed.

“I am a Greater Demon, yes.” That is his legacy, that is what he has made of himself. He stands by that lie. He watches as Niall makes a grab for the folder, easily taking it out of Harry's long and limp fingers, his eyes going wide as he finds the paragraph about Louis. “I didn't see that.” He murmurs and his fingers trace over the ink, as if it was written in Braille not sandy ink.

“What does that mean?” Harry asks, just as Niall closes the folder with a loud 'thud' and says, “You seem pretty harmless to me, mate.”

Before Louis can answer, Harry's phone rings and the built up tension dissolves, like water running down the drain. Harry picks up. “Yes? Liam? Calm down what is it?” Harry straightens up immediately, his whole posture radiating alertness. “What did you just say?”

\-----------------

“There was a fire in the club last night. Pretty soon after we left.” Harry's eyes are wide and scared, as if the fire was following him, tracking him down. “Liam is coming over, he says that there was something weird about it.”

“Yeah, no shit. There should not be a freaking fire in a nightclub! Did anyone get hurt?” Niall butts in, his voice laced with genuine worry. But Harry's eyes are fixed on Louis, as if he could explain the fire to him.

“What do you think he meant by weird?” Louis asks, his focus just as sharp on Harry.

“He sounded – distressed.” Harry finally says.

“Uhm, yes. Because his club probably just burned to the ground.” Niall says and laughs awkwardly when he realizes that Harry and Louis are ignoring him.

“Guys?” He asks quietly, and the air is bristling with questions. “What did you do last night?” The blonde asks, as if he could see guilt dripping out of their pores. “Why were you at the club?”

“We were following a lead.” Harry answers but he doesn't look at Niall. His green eyes stay focused on the crouched figure on his bed. The one he hopes has all the answers.

“We found the spell that brought me here. It was scratched into a toilet stall. And Harry summoned me but there is no way that he has the power to wield a spell like that just on his own. So there is someone else meddling with me.”

“With us.” Harry whispers, but Niall drowns him out.

“You don't think that the fire has anything to do with this, do you? With the spell?” His face is ashen and blotchy with patches of red.

“We don't know.” Louis says after a long silence, but before anyone else can interject, there is a loud knock on their door.

“That must be Liam.” Harry says, rubbing his forearms as if he were cold, before he takes the two steps towards the door.

The bouncer from last night fills the room with broad shoulders and confusion. And Louis still doesn't like him, even less now with his wide and fearful eyes and his furrowed brows that look weary with what is running through his mind.

“Hey man,” Niall greets him, the only one in the room not paralysed by the weight of the air. “I heard about the club, are you all right? Did anyone get hurt?” He hugs Liam, his lanky and milky arms crushing the bigger man against him.

“Yeah yeah I'm fine, everyone is fine – I,” he stutters. “I didn't know you were here, Nialler.” He tries for a smile.

“You know me, always in the middle of everything.”

Liam nods and his eyes flicker to Harry and Louis, his eyelashes fluttering like moths around a lamp. “We need to talk.”

\-------

The room is too small to fit everyone onto a chair, too small for four people in general, but they make do. Carbon dioxide is filling the room faster than it should, the air turning stuffy and hot.

“What did you do yesterday? When you went to the back rooms?” Liam asks after a long silence, his arms crossed in front of him, as he leans against the wall. Harry stalls the answer.

“How did the fire start?” He asks instead and Louis nods along. He doesn't want Liam to know about all of this.

“That's the thing. It just – a guy that went to the loo after you, he talked to the police and he said that he had heard voices coming from the last stall, weird voices like whispers or something and when he went to check it out, apparently the whole wall just caught fire. There was no one in there and when he went in everything just started burning.” He gesticulates wildly, and Louis can almost imagine flames dancing between his fingers. “He ran away then and we called the fire department and evacuated the club and you know the drill,” blank eyes blinked up at him. “And the medics later said that he had probably drank too much or maybe he even had smoke poisoning, but…”

“You don't believe them.” Niall says flatly, and even though he is sitting cross-legged on the ground, his voice carries into every corner of the room. Liam shakes his head.

“Why not?” That's Harry.

“Because before the fire department even got there, the fire was already out. And I know that we have had many problems with fire safety insurances because that whole back area is made out of old and dry wood and we use smoke guns in our club and that can easily catch fire and I'm saying… everything should have burned to the ground. Everything.”

“But it didn't?”

“The fire only was in that one stall. Only that one. And cameras prove that no one went in there to extinguish the fire by themselves. It's as if -”

“As if the flames had a mind of their own.” Louis says quietly, but he tunes out Liam's passionate nodding. Because if what Liam says is true, then someone was keeping a watch on Harry and him. Someone was watching them. Eliminating every trace of their work along the way. Yet leaving bread crumbs for them to find. Nervously Louis starts biting on the pad of his thumb. Who would have the power to do something like that? Who would have the motivation?

“Why did you come to us, Liam? Do you think we have something to do with it?” Harry asks softly and his position on his chair is a bad imitation of carelessness. He is straddling the chair backwards, his arms folded neatly on the back of the chair, making his collar bones stand forward and his shoulders flare to the sides.

“You were the last ones in there before it happened. And you didn't – you seemed off. You disappeared so quickly and bringing the new guy?” He points towards Louis. “I just think there is something you are not telling me, is all.” His voice has lost its brawniness and Louis might be willing to share now.

“My name is Louis.”

“I know.”

“You should use my name then and not talk about me in the third person.”

“Okay.”

“Also I'm a demon and I could burn you down on the spot, should you consider not calling me by my name.”

“Funny.”

Louis shrugs and turns to Harry again, as if to say, “ _I tried_.”

“Liam, bro, maybe you should sit down.” It's Niall that saves the day. Or tries to at least.

“No. There is no chair left. What's going on?” He is met with a strange kind of silence. A silence that tells him that he has already gotten his answer, but he refused to listen.

“Who is he?” Liam asks more briskly, pointing towards Louis.

“I told you to call me by my name.” The man in questions quips and lets himself fall back down on the bed, his arms crossed behind his head.

“Who is _he_?” The bouncer repeats.

“That's Louis.” Harry speaks up. His earnest eyes solely focused on Liam. “And he told you already. He's a demon.”

“There are no such things as demons.” Liam insists, but Louis can feel the air around him shake, every molecule around Liam telling him to run.

“Can't you just, you know, turn?” Niall pipes in. “Like how you convinced Harry and me? Stop acting like this doesn't concern you.”

Louis sits up, faster than he intended to, and he hears Liam gasp softly. “I know that this concerns me, Human. You know who should keep their stubby nose out of this though? You.”

“Me?” Niall asks, and scrambles up, his nose turned up affronted. “I've been the only one who has found actual leads as to how you are here! All you did was burn down a toilet stall!”

“Oh so now we're accusing me, are we?” Louis laughs coldly, but before he can starts cursing Niall more, Harry steps in. Soft and appeasing.

“This is hard for all of us. Fighting doesn't help.” Niall lets himself fall back on the ground with a small grunt, but he seems to be willing to listen to Harry. Louis however wants to put up a fight.

“Louis,” he sounds so pleading. “just show Liam what you showed us, please. He can help us.”

“How can he help us?” Louis asks back with a bit more bite in his tone than he had intended to. But Harry doesn't flinch. Not any more. “I already got everything I need from him.”

“He's a friend, Louis.” And with a sigh Louis obliges. His chest feels uncommonly warm and he decides that he has nothing left to lose.

“Watch,” he says sternly to Liam and closes his eyes, after he has made sure that Liam's attention is purely on him. And then he changes, let's his demon outgrow his chosen vessel. Dark wings spread out behind him and his fingers elongate into claws, black and hard and sharp, just as his canines grow over his bottom lip, showing that he could tear apart anyone who stands in his way. And just as quickly as it started, it stops and all that is left on the narrow student bed is a small boy with unsettling blue eyes. A smirk settled almost aggressively on his pale lips. Liam is pressed against the door, his knees are shaking, the sound of them knocking together almost audible.

“What...what… How did you do that?”

“I think he's a bit daft, to be honest.”

“Shut up, Louis.”

“Feisty, Niall.”

Over Niall and Louis' bickering, Harry steps towards Liam, his palms outstretched and his voice slow and soft.

“It's okay to be shocked, Liam. But he told you the truth. He is a demon and we are trying to find a way to bring him back.”

“Back?” He whispers and swallows repeatedly, his Adam’s apple bopping up and down like a buoy in a storm. Liam is ushered to sit down, his face paling even more as he realizes that he is to sit down next to Louis, the one he has just seen turn himself into his worst nightmare, but he agrees, his legs too weak to support him any longer. And thus the retelling begins. Everything from the start.

And Louis is not deliberately trying to be annoying, or trying to rile Harry up on purpose as the boy tries to recount everything that has happened, but this is not what he wanted. He needs answers not some other human sticking his nose into Louis' business; into something they won't understand. So he sits impatiently on the bed next to a still shaking Liam, a thin layer of sweat barely visible on his upper lip. Louis plays with his vessel, let's things grow and shrink, changes his eye colour and his hair. And he ignores the reproachful look Harry is giving him for setting Liam even more on edge who is steadily having a harder time keeping his focus on his friend rather than the monster sitting a few inches next to him.

“I want to help.” Is the first thing Liam says, that makes Louis perk up, and for the first time, sit still.

“Liam, you are my kind of pal. You can help me sort through the closed off library! It's always better to have two sets of eyes! Mate, this is brilliant! The more the merrier! This is a real adventure now! Go team!” Niall enthusiastic voice rings through the room. Harry sounds quite different.

“This could be dangerous, Liam. I don't want to pull you into this.”

“He got himself into this mess, didn't he?” Louis asked and crossed his arms, checking Liam out form the corner of his eyes. “I say if he talks all brave, he should at least deliver.”

“Louis,” Harry whispers and suddenly there's a hand on Louis' shoulder. The soft pressure of Harry's fingertips burning through the fabric of Louis' shirt. “Are you sure? I thought,” his voice drops, the next words barely audible in the small room. “I thought you might not want too many people involved.”

And of course Harry is right. Louis doesn't want this. Never did. Of course Harry picked up on why Louis has been rejecting Liam all this time, that's just what Harry does, he creeps under his skin and he has seen through Louis act. By all means, Louis should be offended. His act, his lies have always been his one and only pride, the fact that no one knew the real him, that every one could be fooled so easily, that has always been what has made him tick. And Harry saw through it all. But Harry might have seen through his walls, but he still doesn't understand. Because what Louis loves more than keeping his cards close to his chest, are challenges. And picking Liam as a new team member was certainly a challenge for all of them, especially Liam, who was watching Harry and Louis communicate without words. His hands trembling, as he repeatedly rubbed the skin beneath his nose, having become aware of the sweat gathering there.

“Let him prove himself. Niall needs someone to read through the library, I don't need to talk to him, do I?” Harry shakes his head. “I will kill you, if you cross me or blabber to the wrong people.” Louis adds nonchalantly in Liam's direction before he stands up and turns around. With soft whispers and hushed reassurances Harry ushers Niall and Liam out into the hall, telling them to get some rest, saying that they will talk more about all of this tomorrow.

Liam is the first to leave, his combat boots thudding heavily along the corridor. Niall steps out after him but before Harry closes the door, he leans in close to the blonde and Louis listens in. Listens to Harry mumbling into Niall´s ear, that he has to go look for something on this spell – Louis hears crunching paper and he knows that Harry just handed Niall the spell Louis had written down last night, the spell that had burned down a toilet, had burned Louis' fingers, had summoned Louis here – and then he describes to Niall how the spell had gotten into his head, how he has been consumed by it, how he had probably summoned Louis. He is giving him the run down of the things, he and Louis had been wanting to discuss all day. He was sharing information that should have been dealt with already, had Liam not interrupted. Louis clenches his fingers, his knuckles white, and he hopes for Liam´s own sake that he would be able to deliver something. That he really could help and not slow them down, like he had done today.

\--------------

It's still relatively early when Harry announces that he wants to go to bed, his face relaxed and open, almost apologetic in it's softness. As if he was apologizing for having to sleep, when Louis was still deep in thoughts, his demon nature keeping him from shutting down his system and sleeping when he was in a vessel on earth.

“It's just I barely got any sleep last night,” he starts, but Louis cuts him off.

“It's fine, Harry. Go to sleep.” He smiles, his cheeks unexpectedly warm.

“What are you going to do?” Harry asks and Louis laughs softly as he watches Harry eye his bed, a mixture of sleepy and childlike longing in his eyes as he gazes at his comforter, and a contemplating furrow in his brows, as if he were calculating if maybe Louis could fit on there anyway, maybe just to rest his feet.

“I might go out.” He answers, as Harry's eyes filter over to him again. “Haven't seen much of this century yet.”

“Oh right.” The boy says. And he nods and grabs a small bag and his pyjamas, before he walks to the shared showers at the end of the hall.

In the silence that follows Harry's absence, Louis' thoughts drift off towards Liam again. And whether or not he had made the right call in letting him in on all of this. The more people know about him, the more Louis is in danger. Lucifer has always warned Louis not to divulge his identity to too many Humans. Wizards yes, that was a given, they were the ones who had the power to bring you onto earth in the first place. Make sure you get them on your side, or at least make yourself popular enough that you get called once or twice, because earth was a much better sight and experience than the Void. But non-magical beings? Non-believers, as humanity had so aptly named them – no, they were not supposed to know too much.

Ruthless, gullible liars, that's what humans were, and confronted with the unknown or the weird, they… tended to lash out. Would he regret Liam? Probably. Louis shrugs. But is he something to be feared? Louis doesn't want to think about it. With his thoughts stuck on Liam, he suddenly remembers the club.

Before Harry and him had found the spell, before everything had become even more complicated, there had been a moment where Harry and Liam had talked. Like friends, carefree before all of Louis' crap unloaded over them and made them accomplices in a magical shit storm. There had been a moment where Louis hadn't been that important, and Liam had said something… something that Louis hadn't understood.

Curiosity claws at his insides, and makes his blood pump. He shouldn't ask. With Harry being this tired and with whatever they would have to deal with the next day, he shouldn't be this curious about that conversation. Not to mention a conversation he had been no part of.

Before he can calm the monster of curiosity, that is chasing the blood through his veins like a cheetah running after its prey, Harry comes back into the room. Changed into soft sleeping pants and a washed out white t-shirt, he traipses in.

“Are you sure that you don't want me to get you an extra blanket or something?” The question sounds practised, as if Harry had been debating asking it the whole time in the bathroom.

And Louis doesn't know what comes over him. Is it the warm feeling that once again spreads over his chest at Harry's kindness or is it still just curiosity that's rearing its head.

“What's a glory hole?”

Harry stops dead in his tracks, his blood rushing to his face, his ears burning, as his eyes widen comically, as if someone was pulling them open by the lids.

“Wha-what?”

“Glory holes. Liam – he mentioned them and I don't know what they are and,” he's lying now. “I thought they might be important for us to understand the spell. Because in the club, he said it in the club and -” He is stuttering now just as much. He shouldn't have said anything.

Harry looks as if someone had just invited him to tap dance naked over London Bridge. Mortified.

“Er, no. No, they are not,” he coughs, “they are not in any way related to err… this.”

“He said that you were there two nights ago though, which was the night you must have seen the spell. And he said you were unsuccessful. Maybe something is blocking your memory and this is the clue we have been wait-”

“No!” Harry suddenly yelps, and his face is turning almost purple now. “No! I promise you nothing is blocking my memory. I – I, uhm, remember well enough. It's nothing. It's a,” he stutters again. “a human thing. You don't need to know.” Harry scrambles around his room, his back suddenly resolutely turned towards Louis, as he packs away his clothes of the day.

“You're acting weird.”

“Me? No, I'm not. I'm not. Weird.” Harry starts sorting through his socks, untangling them and refolding them. Again and again. He still doesn't look at Louis. And now if that is not weird, then Louis is Brutus' bastard son.

“You are.” A pair of socks rolls to the floor.

“It's nothing.” Finally Harry turns around. His whole neck is flushed, the redness of his face in stark contrast to his white shirt, and he would look ridiculous, Louis thinks, if it weren't for the cherry red colour of his lips that he is worrying between his teeth. A thin sheen of saliva coating them. They look kissable, Louis thinks. But he shakes himself out of it.

“It's really not important.”

“Just consider me intrigued then.” Slowly Harry walks over to the bed, his eyes, for once, not leaving Louis, as he sits down. He pulls his knees up to his chest, curls himself around them and laughs dryly.

“I should have known that this would happen.” Louis raises an eyebrow in a question. What was happening exactly? “I should have known that for one, this would bite me in the ass one day, and secondly, that of course, out of everyone, a demon, who doesn't realize how handsome he is, asks me about it.”

“I do realize that.” Harry's laugh turns into something hysterical. “You're still not making sense, though.”

Playing with the hems of his pyjama trousers, Harry starts whispering: “Can I turn off the lights for this? I mean,” he halts, “I'm not usually this awkward about those things. I'm not. But it's you and -”

Louis interrupts him by simply flicking the light switch, plunging them both into unexpected darkness. There is a shuffle of blankets as Harry sinks into the sheets, stretching his legs out and lulling himself into the soft linen.

“Thank you.” Louis doesn't tell him that he can still see him. He lets him slink back into darkness, hiding his blush and his awkwardly splayed limbs. He doesn't think that it would get Harry to talk, if he knew. With a resolute thud, Harry punches his pillow into place, and Louis knows that he has closed his eyes, not because he can see, but because the prickling sensation on his skin has stopped. Harry has closed himself off.

“Okay, so, this might get really weird, and I just want you to remember that you asked me to explain this.”

Louis nods. His silence gets the message across for Harry, who shuffles some more before he starts speaking again. “I know you saw the holes in those toilet stalls. I know you saw because I heard you ask about them. I saw -” He gulps. “That's a glory hole. It's...”

“A dirty hole in a toilet stall is a glory hole?” The demon interrupts and now he wants to laugh, because how could that be? He had imagined something more…. Sacred. Holy. No pun intended.

“What's so glorious about it?”

“It's uhm, sexual, is what it is.”

“Sexual?” Louis asks dubiously, because he knows sex and that just doesn't add up. He might not be accustomed to most of humanity's habits and quirks, but he knows sex, has had plenty of it over the years, enjoys it even, but a hole in a wall? How was that supposed to work? Where was the intimacy? How did you kiss? Where did you – oh. “So you mean...”

“Yes.” Harry says slowly. Almost as if the confirmation pains him.

“What were you doing there then?” It's not that Louis doesn't think Harry wouldn't enjoy an occasional tumble in the sheets every now and again, it's not like he hasn't thought of Harry being sexually active. He is not the role model for abstinence, and Harry was far from being ugly, of course he has thought about it. Harry alone, Harry with other people, Harry with Louis himself. The last thought hadn't survived long in Louis' brain. He needed Harry to get back home, he couldn't fall victim to his charms, his looks, his warm hands, not him, the one person on whom he was dependent on.

But still, Louis couldn't imagine Harry kneeling down in a dirty stall to give an anonymous man head, or waiting for someone to do it for him. From what Louis had observed in the last few days, Harry was too tactile for such clinical intercourse.

“I think you know.” Harry simply says, and Louis can hear him turn around, the blankets rustling as he plops down on his back spread-eagled.

“Why were you there then?” Louis won't let this go, not now when his curiosity has been fed so far.

“To relieve some stress.”

“Why didn't you pick someone up then? Bring them home? You're handsome enough for that.”

“Th-thank you? I guess?” Louis can almost taste the blood rushing to Harry's cheeks, as his words waver across the room like fog, uncertain, but all encompassing anyway.

“So why?”

“I like it.” Harry says quietly, and his foggy voice is laced with lightning now. A new kind of combination of spite and embarrassment. It takes everything in Louis not to blurt out another “why”. He knows that silence brings more answers than questions do, but he has always been bad at biting his tongue. “I like it.” Harry repeats quieter, almost as if he is talking to himself. “I like… I know you must think I am pathetic or, or like dirty or I don't even know what you might think, maybe you're disgusted.” Louis bites his tongue, drawing blood, his mouth filling with the coppery taste of it. “But it's just something that I like. And it's not weird. Lots of people do it. It's just. It's so unattached. It's just about that moment. About giving your everything at that moment to whoever is on that other side. You forget everything around you. It's not… It's not about intimacy, it's about pure lust. And that might repel you, or I don't know. Maybe you don't even have sex. But for me it's this thing, where I can forget who I am and just be.”

He is breathing hard. He is punching the words out of his lungs, his mouth. “And yes it's also… satisfying. Looking at it solely from the sexual point of view.”

Louis wants to ask how giving a blow job could be satisfying for Harry, but he thinks he has asked for enough today. He has no business asking Harry for more. Harry takes a deep breath and continues forcing the words out of bloodstream. “But it's… God I never had to explain this to anyone. Liam knows what I do, of course. He works at the club after all. He sees things.” He laughs dryly. “But there is a kinda unspoken rule between us to not talk about it too explicitly?” Louis' dislike for Liam increases, something very much like jealousy poisoning his airways. “But it's freeing almost. I get lost in the sexual pleasure of it, and I can get lost like that, because… my partner.” He stutters over the word. “He doesn't expect anything from me. It's just this. I don't know how to explain it. It's a great stress relief.”

Harry shrugs, evidently not satisfied with his answer, and the bed creaks under him.

“I understand.” Louis whispers, and he does. It's something about the way Harry explained himself that had resonated something within Louis. He simply understood, he knew what Harry was trying to say.

“You do?” And Louis doesn't know why he does it. Maybe he just doesn't know which words to use, maybe he feels guilty for pressuring Harry into talking about something that was clearly a private matter for him, maybe it is nothing. But he finds himself walking towards the small single bed, sitting down on the edge and telling Harry to scoot over a little bit with a soft nudge into the boy's ribs.

Harry freezes at first, his chest full of air that he hasn't released yet, his ribcage expanded, his chest round, like an iron bird cage, but then he nods, and Louis can truly see him now. Without having to try. The darkness of the room has turned grey, showing Harry's face in soft paintbrushes. He strips himself off his shoes, and slips in next to Harry. They are laying side by side now. The only point of contact enforced by the size of the bed, but it's still a nice feeling; the heat of Harry's skin against his own, to feel his bird cage open, his lungs breathing freely now.

“Sleep now.” Louis whispers, and ignoring his unexpected bed partner, Harry nods again, and turns slightly into Louis' body heat, closing his eyes more firmly.

“Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am currently a little bit stressed, so the third chapter might really really take a while, but I will try my best to deliver as soon as I can. 
> 
> I am always open for a chat on my [tumblr](http://louhearted.tumblr.com/) , if you have questions or anything else, literally.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how often I will be able to update. Knowing myself I probably will have very long gaps between each chapter and I very much want to apologize for that. But, for now, I have two more chapters fully written and ready to go, so this should go off without a hitch :)


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